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Foreword
Christoph Heinrich and Frederick Mayer and Jan Mayer
Description: Women of Abstract Expressionism
Women of Abstract Expressionism
~Women of Abstract Expressionism, organized by the Denver Art Museum, is the first major museum exhibition to present the work of female painters who came of age artistically in the heady avant-garde milieu of late 1940s and 1950s America. These painters took full part in classes and exhibitions on both the East and West coasts within the circles of artists...
Author
Christoph Heinrich and Frederick Mayer and Jan Mayer
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2016 by Denver Art Museum and Yale University
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21114
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Foreword
Women of Abstract Expressionism, organized by the Denver Art Museum, is the first major museum exhibition to present the work of female painters who came of age artistically in the heady avant-garde milieu of late 1940s and 1950s America. These painters took full part in classes and exhibitions on both the East and West coasts within the circles of artists who became known as Abstract Expressionists, yet their participation has been underreported and their canvases undervalued. This exhibition and book will show these gestural painters in a new light and serve to both challenge and correct the prevailing canon of Abstract Expressionism.
Major support from Merle Chambers enabled curatorial research and the publication of this catalogue. We are also grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ponzio family, U.S. Bank, Christie’s, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Dedalus Foundation, Bette MacDonald, and the Deborah Remington Charitable Trust for the Visual Arts for their generous contributions to the project. Additionally, we would like to thank Barbara Bridges and DAM Contemporaries, a support group of the Denver Art Museum, for their contributions to the documentary film produced for the exhibition.
I am deeply grateful to generous institutional colleagues who lent paintings to the exhibition: Doreen Bolger, director, the Baltimore Museum of Art; Rod Bigelow, executive director, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Barbara O’Brien, executive director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art; Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; William J. Chiego, director, McNay Art Museum; Sabine Eckmann, William T. Kemper Director and chief curator, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; Glenn D. Lowry, director, Museum of Modern Art; Susan Fisher Sterling, Alice West Director, National Museum of Women in the Arts; Lori Fogarty, director and CEO, Oakland Museum of California; Neal Benezra, Helen and Charles Schwab Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Charles R. Loving, director, Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame; Brian Trimble, interim director, University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach; and Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director, Whitney Museum of American Art.
We are also indebted to Margaret Mathews-Berenson, curator, Deborah Remington Charitable Trust for the Visual Arts; Elizabeth Smith, executive director, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation; Leah Levy, director and trustee, The Jay DeFeo Foundation; and Christa Blatchford, CEO, Kira Osti, collections manager, and Laura Morris, archivist, Joan Mitchell Foundation.
Special thanks go to Art Enterprises, Ltd.; Judith Godwin; Susan and David Kalt; Thomas McCormick and Janis Kanter; Barbara Nino; Craig Ponzio; Christopher Schwabacher; Jennifer and David Stockman; and Brenda Webster. I also want to acknowledge and thank several additional lenders who wish to remain anonymous. Finally, I am delighted to partner with President and CEO Kathleen V. Jameson at the Mint Museum and JoAnn McGrath Executive Director Elizabeth Armstrong at the Palm Springs Art Museum in presenting this important exhibition.
This exhibition project supports the mission of the Denver Art Museum to highlight personal creativity among broad segments of society, to identify and encourage individual and unique perspectives, and to show the work of exceptional artists. This catalogue will be the permanent record of Women of Abstract Expressionism. With a new understanding of Abstract Expressionism and of the contributions of women, we fully expect this project to have a lasting impact on the field.
Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director, Denver Art Museum